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Smoking cessation study makes a splash

Research on abrupt versus gradual smoking cessation is listed in Altmetric's top 100 papers of 2016.

Dr Nicola Lindson-Hawley being interviewed for ITV Meridian news.

The study’s popularity just goes to demonstrate the public’s need for high quality evidence to help them choose the best way to quit smoking.- Dr Nicola Lindson-Hawley, University of Oxford

Altmetric, the online tracker of conversations about scholarly articles, has this week published their list of the most talked about research papers of 2016. Ranking at number 56 is a study on abrupt versus gradual smoking cessation from Oxford University researchers Dr Nicola Lindson-Hawley and Professor Paul Aveyard.

The paper, published in March 2016 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, finds that smokers who try to cut down the amount they smoke before stopping are less likely to quit than those who choose to quit all in one go.

Now boasting an Altmetric score of 1938, the findings achieved international broadcast coverage in 209 news outlets, 7 blogs, 314 tweeters, 41 Facebook pages, 2 Google+ users and 40 readers on Mendeley. And that’s only the mentions that linked directly back to the research paper itself.

Commenting on the accolade, lead author Dr Nicola Lindson-Hawley, from the Health Behaviours Group in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences said “It’s great to see our research has led to so much discussion in the popular press and on social media about the best way to give up smoking. While I was prepared for some media coverage, I had no idea it was going to be such a far reaching story – from the Cotswold Journal to Today, one of the USA’s most watched morning breakfast shows.”

The study’s popularity just goes to demonstrate the public’s need for high quality evidence to help them choose the best way to quit smoking.”

The British Heart Foundation-funded research was conducted in partnership with the University of Birmingham and University College London.

In the past year, Altmetric has tracked over 17 million mentions of 2.7 million different research outputs. One third of papers in this year’s top 100 are from the UK, with six from the University of Oxford.

Top of the leader board is a special communication in JAMA on United States health care reform by US President Barack Obama - the first academic paper published by a sitting president. Obama assesses the effect of the Affordable Care Act and recommends additional healthcare priorities for future governments.

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